Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Fifty Six: A Plan

He couldn't bear it anymore.

"Salt water," he grunted at Usk over the table, on the third day following Jordan's abrupt departure from his rooms. Arlen was running low on Mary-Beth already. It was the only thing that afforded him any sleep, but it came with a price; the last three nights in a row he had woken, sweating and screaming, as a dark figure waited at the end of the bed with a blade in one hand, only he wasn't screaming because he couldn't move. His body slept while his mind battled the spectre, walking the cliff edge where madness waited at the bottom of the drop.

At the prospect of another night like that, he could have wept into his porridge.

He shovelled in another mouthful of the only dish Usk could cook – he had been living on porridge since he was shot, another factor that had pushed him to this point – and briefly pondered the glop's potential as a road surface. A spot had flicked onto the table while he'd been pushing it around his bowl, and it had dried like a lump of rock. He tapped it with his finger and suppressed a snort.

"Are you going to expand on that?" Usk muttered. "Or did you just want to say it?"

Arlen knew Usk was aware of his nightmares, and hated him for it. The Varthian probably thought he'd gone mad. Arlen's response was sharper than intended. "I want some. Nothing we're doing is working, and even if it does heal I don't want to be running around with a bolt stuck through my dark-damned leg."

"Taking it out would be too risky."

"Which is why we're going to get a physician to do it."

Usk looked at him, and Arlen realised the brute really did think he had cracked. He scowled. "I've been thinking of a scheme. If it doesn't work, I'm no worse off."

"If it doesn't work, you can't get away," Usk pointed out. "I believe that would actually leave you considerably worse off."

"It's this or dying of wound rot," Arlen snapped. "At least this has a chance of improving things."

Silence stretched through the room. Arlen returned to pushing his food around the bowl, avoiding Usk's eye. It was the first time he'd said out loud that the wound might kill him, and if he hadn't taken Mary Beth with two shots of whisky the minute he woke up that day he might have stopped himself. But the words were out, and he couldn't take them back. It didn't make them any less true even if he could.

Usk put down his spoon and dragged Arlen's almost-untouched bowl towards him. "What is this plan, then?"

Arlen paused, withholding his relief. Usk never made decisions without considering every angle, which was useful when they worked together, and infuriating when Arlen tried to con him. "We could get Jes and Akiva involved. Jesper's a great actor."

Usk paused mid-chew.

"Akiva could easily get the costumes."

"You want to pose as a merchant," Usk said, without a trace of a question. "How do you propose doing that while looking the picture of...what was it Akiva said? A slippery git."

"Merchants are slippery gits," Arlen muttered, scowling. It had been bothering him, too. He could dress up like Harkenn himself and place his arse on a solid gold throne; he still wouldn't look respectable.

"If I may make a suggestion," Usk said. "My sister could make you look like someone else."

"I don't like your sister."

"And she hates you," Usk retorted. "But you could spend the rest of that money on drugs or you could pay her to pretend she doesn't. Unless you have a better expert in disguises that you've kept very well hidden."